


time war shenanigans except now it's starring gwen

by MourningDew



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Dimension Travel, Gore, Time Travel, Violence, but like not really, eon is a mad lad, gwen has the omnitrix, some fighting yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:08:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22566814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MourningDew/pseuds/MourningDew
Summary: gwen has the omnitrix and ben is visiting from another dimension, but so is eon and that's a problem. everybody works together to kick ass, except not-from-around-here ben is kinda hurt badly, which is also a problem.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	time war shenanigans except now it's starring gwen

Okay. So Ben could be sweet if he really, really tried. By that, Gwen means both she, him, and Grandpa Max all had to be in a life or death situation with some ratty bad guy ranting about bugs or some such (villains  _ so  _ needed to get a  _ life _ ).

Nine times out of ten, though, Ben was nothing short of a bastard. Gwen fought freaks for a living- or for the summer, anyway- but  _ nobody _ topped the stunts Ben has pulled off. It didn’t even make sense; she was the one  _ turning into  _ aliens, but he still topped her every time through sheer will.

“Ben, if you throw mud at me again I’m gonna kill you,” she promised.

There was a wet squelch from just behind her as he presumably dropped the mud ball, “dude, didja get eyes in the back of your head or somethin’? I guess all those aliens are finally permanent.”

Gwen twisted in her lawn chair to glare at him and saw mud smeared all over him, steadily drying to his body. She crossed her arms, “Grandpa  _ said  _ he wasn’t gonna do your laundry again and you are  _ not  _ getting the rustbucket coated in it.”

“C’mon, it’s fine. I’ll just jump in the lake or whatever,” Ben waved her off, “you’re such a dweeb.”

“Uh huh. Okay,” she smirked, “do it then.” 

Ben visibly seemed to realize something was wrong the second Gwen agreed with him, but of course there was no way he was paying attention when the tour guide said the water was frigid cold. It was also life threatening, but Gwen had ten aliens to back her up in case Ben was stupid enough to drown.

Perks of the omnitrix: letting her cousin jump face first into death to teach him a lesson.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t happen today. Grandpa Max rounded the rustbucket and immediately gave Gwen the  _ look _ that said he heard what she said and still expected her to be the responsible one. Not fair.

But nothing was when it came to Ben, who shoved her in the shoulder and ran off again, leaving Gwen to crank her neck around and try to survey the damage of his muddy handprint on her shoulder. “ _ Ben!  _ You are  _ dead!” _ She shoved off her chair and ran after his smug, stupid face.

“Gwen! Ben! Behave…!” Grandpa tried to step in their path, but all he succeeded in doing was starting a game of chicken as Ben kept dodging behind his big belly, Gwen making grabs at his grubby little-

Grandpa’s groan cut off at the sound of a sudden scream; instantly, any irritated humor dropped from the air like a stone. Gwen took a calming breath and ran toward the sound, two pairs of footsteps echoing reassuringly behind her. 

The area they stopped in was pretty heavily wooded, but Gwen could glimpse a flailing shape in the sky between branches. She could also barely hear the sound of lasers, but she could deal with that later.

“Gwen, c’mon! Stinkfly!  _ Stinkfly,” _ Ben prodded, uncharacteristically urgent (as he always was, the second someone was in real danger).

“On it,” she called, already messing with the omnitrix, “you guys wait here, I guess,” she shrugged and slapped the omnitrix, thankfully transforming into stinkfly. It would’ve  _ seriously _ blown if she got wildmutt or something. She hesitated just long enough to hear Ben shout  _ “as if!”  _ before she was rocketing into the sky after the small silhouette, which was now worriedly silent.

By the time Gwen was close to enough to wonder if  _ maybe  _ this thing wasn’t human (from this distance, the proportions just weren’t right), she was suddenly bombarded with lasers from a nearby cliff. 

“Oh come  _ on,”  _ she groaned and narrowly dodged another red hot beam. So much for dealing with them later. Alright, serious mode, then.

Gwen made a brief nose dive, squinting into the wind, and finally she was stretching out her arms as far as they could go. The probably-alien was almost right in front of her, but it was also falling  _ really  _ fast and- oh god- it was gonna slip through her fingers-

Then whatever it was twisted in the air and reached for her in return; they caught each others hands and Gwen was almost snapped out of the air with the force of how fast the little alien had been going. She couldn’t really look right now, but it was partly green and probably had whiskers. 

“You good?” she called over the lasers, which seemed to have picked up. Before, their attacker was just a blurry shape in the distance (thanks, crappy bug eyes), but now they were a blurry shape in the distance with some sort of hover board.

“I’ve- I’ve been better, honestly-” came the tight response from her hands.

Gwen flinched as a beam grazed a leg, “well, hold on, ‘cause I think it’s about to get worse!”

The alien grabbed at her arms, “careful, I can’t really swim like this…!”

“Huh?” Gwen spared a glance down and, yeah, they were currently zipping over the wide, freezing expanse of the lake. The water looked a lot more menacing from this angle; it was frothing more now than when she was on the tour boat making fun of Ben’s stupid face.

“Watch it! Energy whip on your-!”

Just as Gwen was looking back to check for herself, she glimpsed a sleek, purple and black suit of armor before pain shot down her wing and they went careening toward the water.

Somewhere in the spinning, blurry chaos of trees above the sky, she must’ve let go, because when she got herself back under control, the little alien was gone.

Then laser-guy suddenly shot passed her like a bullet and Gwen made an educated guess to their whereabouts before diving after them. She took an extra second to shoot goop all over the exhaust of the bad guy’s fancy hoverboard and felt no small amount of satisfaction when he yelled in alarm and began to plummet.

“Hello? Little alien? Where’d you-”

“Gwen!”

Her head snapped to the side at the sound of Grandpa’s voice and she, not for the first time, felt relief flood her system to see him and Ben perfectly okay. Sweaty and out of breath, but okay (sometimes this heroine stuff really got to her).

She snapped out of it at Ben’s frantic gesturing, “downstream! They’re drowning!”

“Oh man- okay- okay- on it,” she called, pushing passed the ache in her back to drop in altitude, her legs just grazing the water’s surface as she sped along the, frankly, frightening terrain. And she fought aliens for a summer.

For a solid minute, Gwen could feel weight gathering in the pit of her stomach; she couldn’t see anything but cloudy water and waves. They weren’t  _ that  _ big, but neither was the alien. Oh god, and it said it couldn’t swim.

Just before she could work up the courage to dive under, she heard a wheezing gasp and whipped around to find the alien flailing weakly, grappling with the out-of-commission hoverboard.

“I got you! Hang on,” she promised and wasted no time in rushing over and plunging every appendage she had into the water to get the poor thing out of there; and  _ wow,  _ the tour guide was  _ so right,  _ it was  _ freezing. _

Gwen shivered and dripped water all the way back to where she last saw her family; or close enough. They probably ran along the bank after her, even though there was nothing they could do at this point. 

“Gwen, sweetie, you okay,” Grandpa asked the second she was coming in for a landing.

“Yeah, but they’re not. What do we do?” She cradled the alien in her arms, feeling every full body shiver that wracked through them.

“Blankets and towels…?” Ben suggested, looking to Grandpa for help.

He nodded and patted Ben on the shoulder like he was proud, even though literally anyone could’ve thought of that. On second thought, this was Ben she was talking about. 

“Yeah. I think I’ve got a heated blanket, too. In any case, we should get back to the rustbucket…” Grandpa sighed and seemed to sag for a moment, “go ahead of us, Gwen. Dry them off. I’ll be right there…”

“You okay, Grandpa…?” Ben asked, already inching in the vague direction of home.

“Fine. I’m just a little old. Now get going!”

Gwen didn’t need to be told twice; she hated leaving him like that, but someone else needed her help and they were in far worse shape. “Hey, can you hear me,” she asked once she’d risen above the canopy. The alien lay limp cradled in her arms, but they did open their eyes a little, which was better than nothing.

This day was really turning out to suck. Gwen was even the one that wanted to come here and see the sights in the first place. It was in one of her magazines listed as six out of ten places that you  _ had  _ to visit when traveling. She wanted to visit all ten by the end of summer, but not like  _ this. _

She didn’t want to go back home and hear her parents ask “so what’d you do this summer?” then think about the time someone died in her arms.

Gwen felt her heart drop when she heard the omnitrix starting to time out; she made an emergency landing in a too-tiny-for-her-comforts clearing and shook the mess of leaves out of her hair before readjusting her grip on the alien.

They were even colder against her bare skin. And bigger. Now that she thought about it, all the wind on their already freezing and  _ wet  _ body must’ve been hell.  _ Ugh,  _ stupid.

All Gwen could do was run the rest of the way back to the rustbucket and slam the door open. Grandpa always told them not to do that, but she figured he wouldn’t care right now.

Gwen yanked the closet open and drug out a couple towels, throwing them carelessly on the table before, much more gently, laying the alien on top of them. As she worked to dry them off, she finally had a moment to actually  _ look _ at who she rescued. 

It looked about the size of a little kid- littler than her, anyway. It had green markings on its body, almost in a jumpsuit pattern; or maybe an hourglass. It had three fin-things on it’s head, and a set of sharp looking claws on each hand. It also had a weird purple medallion thing around it’s neck. All things considered, it was pretty cute.

Except for the part about an ugly looking wound across it’s chest. Gwen didn’t know anything about first-aid, nor did she know anything about whatever species this was supposed to be.

“Now would be a  _ great  _ time for some help to get here. Or for you to wake up. ...Or for blankets, I guess,” she sighed, when neither of the former happened. After draping the fluffiest she could find over the little alien, she resorted to wrapping them in a cocoon of it all and delving into the forbidden zone of the closet, where almost anything could be stashed. If it fit under the categories of ‘not useful within the next month’ and ‘won’t smell in the next month’ then it could be found here (though Ben tended to ignore the latter rule). 

Gwen reached the point of muttering to herself when  _ finally _ she felt the rustbucket shift with new weight. She poked her head around the closet door to see Grandpa Max and Ben both a little muddier than when she last saw them. “Finally! They’re on the table.”

She stood to join them, but stumbled a little and caught herself on the wall. They gave her a look, but didn’t stop to fret when she didn’t hit the floor or puke blood or whatever they expected.

Grandpa went to put his hand on it’s forehead, but froze suddenly. Ben took an audible breath to ask, but Grandpa beat him to it, “this look familiar?”

Gwen and Ben crowded in to get a look and-  _ yeah… _ that looked an awful lot like the omnitrix. Grandpa tapped it and it even beeped softly. He tried a couple other things, but the only other reactions were a weird warble-y sound and a green spark.

“Do ya think there’s more than one omnitrix? Even though Vilgax was all-” Ben lowered his voice comically, despite the situation- “ _ the most powerful weapon in the universe!” _

Grandpa was shaking his head before Ben even finished, “there’s no way.”

Gwen crossed her arms, “well- why not? But also, how do we even know that one’s an actual omnitrix?”

Ben pounded his fist into his hand, “we should tie him up for questioning!”

“Now, Ben. I don’t think there’s any need for that. Besides, they’re out cold. They’re probably-”

“Ha. Good one. ...Out  _ cold, _ ” Ben added after a couple blank stares. “...Ugh, nevermind. Continue.”

“...Like I was saying, they’re probably too wounded to get far,” Grandpa finished slowly.

“I thought it was a good one.”

All three of them turned at the sound of a new voice- one with a rather strange quality to it- and found the alien staring at them, propped up on their elbows.

“Oh. It’s awake.” Ben suddenly slammed his hands on the table, “now tell us what you know about the omnitrix!”

Gwen sighed, “what’s that you said about ‘out cold?’ It’s only been like ten minutes since I dried them off.”

Grandpa could only shrug and focus on reeling Ben in.

“Omnitrix? Well, uh…” the alien trailed off, seemingly staring at Ben. Then their gaze slid over to Gwen and she crossed her arms, trying to act cool since she didn’t know what was going on. The alien seemed to lock on to the motion of her arms and- okay. She  _ never  _ knew what aliens were doing, and assuming got her in more bad situations than good.

“What’re you looking at, huh?”

The alien pointed a claw at her, made a couple gestures, then sighed. “Omnitrix. On Gwen. Okay.” 

“Hey, how do you know her name,” Ben shot off first, if only because he could say it fastest out of the three of them.

“ _ Uhhhhhhhhhh… _ ” bingo; looks like that was a slip up. “Okay, okay, okay. Um. How much do you guys know about… the plumber thing?”

Gwen raised an eyebrow, “you mean the secret plumbers? That deal with alien stuff?”

“Uh huh.” The alien finally pushed themselves to sit up, wincing the whole way, “have you guys met Professor Paradox?”

“Can’t say we have,” Grandpa answered slowly, visibly becoming suspicious.

The alien groaned, “okay, this is gonna suck, then. Oh, can we get on the road while we do this, though? I’ve kinda got an army of evil time travelers after me.”

Ben, Grandpa, and herself all exchanged a disbelieving look.

“...Also, unrelated, but what’s with all the mud?”

\---

_ Only  _ because the freaky little alien refused to talk unless they got moving did Grandpa agree to start driving. Or at least that’s what Gwen liked to think; she didn’t really trust this guy now that he was awake- yes, a guy, that was finally clarified. Anyway, Grandpa was pretty eager to get moving once he heard the words ‘army’ and ‘after me.’ 

So now Ben and Gwen sat on one booth while the alien sat wrapped in a heated blanket on the other. His head and shoulders were barely visible above the table, so it was a little hard to take him seriously, but it would probably be hard no matter what, what with that squishy looking face and big, green eyes.

“So. Evil time travelers,” Ben started skeptically, “what’s that about?”

“Well, to start with, I just wanna clarify that I’m not from this time period. Actually, I’m not even from this dimension.” The fact that Gwen didn’t believe a single word of this must’ve shown on her face, because the alien crossed his arms and frowned at her, “alright, just look at me. Look- look right here,” he tapped his forehead and, by extension, the omnitrix. “There’s only one of these babies in existence. You got the one in this dimension, and I got mine in my dimension.” 

“Who  _ are  _ you, though,” Grandpa asked, glancing back from the wheel.

“Oh, right- I’m another Ben,” he said casually, like he hadn’t just said something completely ridiculous and, honestly hilarious.

Gwen demonstrated this by laughing loudly, Ben doing the same at her side. 

“Kids, at least let him finish,” Grandpa said, though he didn’t really sound upset. He was probably only straight-faced to be polite. Gwen understood, but the alien kinda crossed the line into looney town already.

“ _ If  _ you’re me-” Ben cut in, “then tell me something only I’d know.” 

Alien-Ben sighed heavily, “alright, uhh… how old are you?”

“Ten.” 

There was a minute of silence as he thought before finally snapping in realization. Alien-Ben shrugged off the blanket and climbed on top the table, looking a little unsteady as he crossed it to whisper in Ben’s ear.

It didn’t take long until a wicked blush spread across his face like wildfire and Gwen just  _ had  _ to know. “What? What’d he say?”

“Uh. Nothin’ important.”

“It was  _ totally  _ important! What was it,” Gwen wanted to know.

“Point is, that’s definitely me,” Ben said hurriedly, gesturing to the alien that was now pulling the blanket back around himself.

“ _ Please  _ tell me what you told him,” Gwen was leaning over the table in desperation. “I could get him back for  _ so many things  _ with this!”

Ben shoved her against the wall of the rustbucket, “no! Don’t tell her  _ anything!” _

“ _ Ben! Get off!” _

“Only if you  _ buzz off, dweeb!” _

“Freak!”

“Loser-!”

“Kids, cool it,” Grandpa cut in, taking his eyes off the road long enough to glare at them. Ben looked like he was about to throw a tantrum, but then he looked back at the alien sitting across from him and seemed to calm down.

Gwen brushed some of the dried mud off her shoulder and crossed her arms, “so. You’re Ben. Why haven’t you timed out yet? Why not just show us instead of tell us?”

“Eon- the guy chasing me earlier- thanks for the save, by the way. That was nice flying. Anyway, Eon broke my omnitrix.”

“It  _ broke?” _ Gwen didn’t think it  _ could  _ break; aliens of all shaped and sizes have been pounding on her from all angles and it was always fine.

“Huh? Yours hasn’t broke? But that’s- oh. You wouldn’t have been messing with it all the time. I keep forgetting you’re the smart one.” 

Ben visibly cringed, “you sure don’t  _ talk  _ like me.” 

“I’m sixteen, actually. You’ll learn how to- actually, not the point. We need to-”

“No, wait,” Gwen was gonna milk this for all it was worth if it killed her, “you mean to tell me Ben’s  _ actually  _ gonna end up  _ mature?” _

“Ah, uh- well, it’ll be way better than he is now. At least, that’s how it was in my dimension.” 

“Hey, who’s side are you on, anyway,” Ben glared at other-Ben in betrayal.

The alien shrugged, “I’ve grown a lot. In lots of ways. Oh- there was this one time-”

“ _ Ben,” _ Grandpa cut in, yet again.

Both Bens turned, “what,” they said, eerily in sync.

“Uh- the alien Ben.”

“Call me Ditto- that’s what I named this alien.” 

“Okay, Ditto. Can we please get back to the whole time travel army thing?”

“Why’d you name it Ditto,” Ben asked.

“Talk  _ later,” _ Grandpa insisted.

When no one else jumped in to derail the conversation again, Ditto nodded and began, “so I’m from another dimension and time. There’s actually a really big time war going on right now, though I don’t really know that much about it. I’ve just helped Paradox out with it a couple times- Professor Paradox is like a professional time travel. He got sucked through a portal and went insane, then went un-insane, and now everybody calls him ‘timewalker.’ Not the point, though.

Point is, now is another one of those times. I’m here to help Paradox again. Eon is kinda another timewalker, except he’s bad at it. He’s also the bad guy.”

“What’re we doing running  _ away, _ then,” Ben asked, resting his chin in his hand.

“Well I was  _ getting there,”  _ Ditto huffed, “that’s where this comes in,” he said, before lifting the medallion over his head and sliding it across the table. 

“So what is it,” Gwen asked, studying the intricate designs.

“Honestly? I’m not entirely sure,” Ditto said flippantly (Gwen wasn’t sure if she could handle Ben this blunt and  _ casual  _ in the future- not when lives were on the line), “all I know is that I stole it from Eon and trapped him in this dimension and  _ maybe _ this time? Or maybe it was in this time but not the dimension? I dunno, I was kinda messed up when Paradox was telling me what I did.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean,” Ben slid the medallion back as he spoke.

Ditto gestured to the painful looking wound across his chest before continuing like it was nothing ( _ seriously _ did this guy’s nerve endings get shut down or  _ what _ ), “all I really got from that conversation was that I need to keep this away from Eon long enough for Paradox to lead an ambush on the bad guys and bam. That’s like… eighty percent of the war, or something.”

“You didn’t seem to be handling it very well before, if you know what I mean,” Grandpa pointed out.

Ditto frowned, but with that face it looked more like a cute pout- which was a weird thing to think about considering that was Ben, but it was kinda hard to see the connection at the moment. “Yeah, well, I’d just gotten chucked through a portal to another dimension and immediately had to jump off a cliff just to save a stupid paperweight,” he slid it back over his neck and immediately hissed in pain, curling in on himself. 

“Hey, are you alright,” Gwen asked, already half getting up. 

Ben stood completely, “shouldn’t we do something about that?”

Ben stepped back when he realized Grandpa had come up behind him, “wait, what about driving?”

“Autopilot.”

“What about police and other drivers,” Gwen wondered.

“I have a badge,” was all Grandpa Max said before he was kneeling beside Ditto, way more worry on his face than Gwen was expecting. Then again, though, now they knew that this was a Ben. “What happened to make that?” Grandpa leaned in and gently pulled the medallion up and over Ditto’s head. When it was set aside, Gwen realized there was blood on the back of it (at least she assumed it was- it had the look, even though it was purple).

“Uh, big energy sword things. I got cornered. Those things sting man, like a thousand jellyfish came to kick my butt at once,” Ditto joked, though he seemed visibly uncomfortable.

“Well, you’ve fallen in a lake and been around the woods since then, so we should disinfect it. Gwen, could-”

Ditto groaned loudly, “but that’s  _ literally  _ the  _ worst part. _ And we’re in the middle of a  _ war. _ I stole a priceless whatever-that-is and we’ve  _ all  _ got bigger problems on our hands. Can’t we do that later, Grandpa?”

Suddenly, Gwen could see the resemblance. “I’ll get the first-aid kit,” she offered, heading for the bathroom while Ditto tried to barter for his escape. She heard Grandpa say something about the importance of keeping wounds clean and how it would hurt way worse later (he’d given Gwen that same lecture after some of her more gruesome fights). 

She handed Grandpa the kit and he didn’t waste time in giving Ditto a stern look.

\---

Gwen would be lying if she said seeing other people in pain didn’t bother her. She had empathy, unlike  _ someone _ who spent the entirety of Ditto’s ‘operation’ playing sumo slammers. All she could think was that Ben was trying to block it out, but he just seemed so  _ casual-  _ wow, okay. The more she thought about it, the more she could definitely see Ben turning into Ditto in a few years.

Personally, though, she just felt too much. Seeing Ditto’s face clench in pain and watching him grip his hands into fists- he couldn’t even hold onto anything for fear of his claws scratching stuff up. He shuddered and gasped and by the end of it all, he looked even more exhausted than when he was  _ unconscious. _

Gwen was definitely feeling protective of him, despite him not being her actual cousin.

Grandpa Max finished wrapping bandages around his chest, constantly checking to make sure they weren’t too tight. “You could end up breaking a rib if they’re too bad. At minimum, it’d be a hairline fracture or bruising,” he’d said, which seemed to finally get through this Ben’s notoriously thick skull, since he admitted to it being a little snug. Grandpa did it all again with absolutely zero complaint.

Ditto finally slid the medallion back around his neck with a heavy sigh before collapsing in his booth.

“Make sure to get some rest, okay?” Grandpa said, keeping a worried eye on Ditto as he packed up the first aid kit. 

“Like I said,” Ditto huffed, “I have an army of evil time travelers after me and they definitely  _ don’t _ need me alive. Which is why we should’ve done that later.”

Gwen looked up from her laptop, which she’d gotten out once cleanup started. “I get why you hate it- seriously, I do. It hurts, it’s uncomfortable, it’s hard to move, you’re exhausted after…” she counted off on her fingers, “but it would’ve sucked way more to collapse from pain or blood loss or whatever. Especially at a bad time.”

Ditto sat up to stare at her for a minute, before finally sighing again, “yeah, I still hate it when you’re right.” 

Gwen couldn’t help but smile smugly.

\---

The atmosphere was peaceful when it happened; Gwen was updating her diary (there was  _ a lot, _ after all. Like time travel, other dimensions, and learning about the future for starters), Ben was rewatching an old sumo slammers movie, Grandpa was back at the wheel, and Ditto was sleeping in Gwen’s bed, otherwise known as the cleanest bed.

Then there was a deafening  _ boom _ as the whole rustbucket creaked and shuddered- everyone flinched, but Ditto shot up and banged his head  _ hard _ against the bunk bed above him; he took it in stride, falling out of bed and stumbling to the front of the rustbucket with a hand holding his head. “Where,” he asked curtly.

Grandpa Max didn’t take his eyes off the rearview mirror, “Eon got his hoverboard back. He’s almost on us.”

“Not if I can help it,” Gwen said, already working to get on top the rustbucket. In an instant, Ben was at her side to help.

“Hey, Gwendolyn,” Ditto stumbled toward her, almost falling when the RV rocked again.

“ _ Gwendolyn?” _

“Oh, sorry, that’s what you make me call you in- whatever.” Ditto waved it off and made grabby hands at her omnitrix, “lemme see that, I think I can make it give you what you want.”

“Seriously!? You figured it out,” Gwen blurted.

“ _ Yes! _ I figured it out,” Ben said, almost at the same time.

They glared at each other, but Ditto ignored them and jumped to reach the omnitrix, pulling her down to kneel. “Okay whaddya- wow, I think I got a concussion. Anyway, what’s gonna be good here?”

“You have a concussion?” Grandpa glanced back from white knuckling the steering wheel.

“Um, stinkfly,” Gwen offered.

“No, no,  _ no! _ Go ghostfreak!” Ben argued.

“Yikes,” Ditto muttered.

“Why ghostfreak? And why yikes,” Gwen slammed her omnitrix free hand on the wall to steady herself after another explosion.

“Ghostfreak could totally just disappear, come up behind Eon, and knock him off his dumb hoverboard! Problem solved!” Ben threw his hands out wide, but cut Gwen off before she could respond, “ _ and-  _ I almost forgot- and there’s the obvious reason that ghostfreak can fly.”

“Okay, good point,” Gwen conceded, “but why yikes?”

Ditto shook his head, already fiddling with the omnitrix, “nothing. Future thing. You’ll find out.”

That was worrying, but it was kind of hard to focus on when Ditto was pressing all sorts of buttons in a weird order and he looked really confident and- maybe she  _ should _ mess with this thing more. The dial popped up without him even touching it, then proceeding to turn by itself as well. “ _ How  _ are you-”

“Anytime now,” Grandpa called, a little stress creeping into his voice.

“Got it,” Ditto announced triumphantly, then, a little weaker, “probably,” before slamming his hand down on the omnitrix and backing up.

Gwen felt her body twist, shift, and grow until she looked down at herself and saw that,  _ yes, _ it  _ worked! _ Was it  _ always _ going to work like this from now on? “ _ Show me that trick later,” _ she hissed to Ditto, who’s only response was a shaky thumbs up.

She took that as her queue to go invisible and slip through the ceiling where she finally saw Eon. He had some sort of bazooka leveled at the rustbucket (which seemed to be charging for another shot) and a couple other guys in armor perched on the hoverboard at his sides.

Gwen would’ve taken a deep breath, but she was dead and didn’t need to breathe, so she just got right to it and flew for Eon’s face. She succeeded in knocking him off; it was incredibly easy, actually, probably because he didn’t even know she was there. Neither did his two henchmen, who rolled to a rather bloody stop on the pavement.

That went all too well, which is why she wasn’t that surprised when the hoverboard announced that it was “activating autopilot” before careening off to catch Eon before he could even scrape a knee.

“ _ Why can’t it ever be easy,”  _ Gwen asked nobody in particular.

Eon fired at her the second she was done speaking, but he was slightly off. That didn’t seem to matter, though, as it grazed her arm and  _ hurt. _ Wasn’t everything supposed to go  _ through  _ her? Like,  _ harmlessly? _

Gwen must have lost focus, because Eon was suddenly staring right at her with a frustrated look, “there you are, you cursed girl. Why do you bother struggling? You’re in the middle of something  _ huge  _ that you do  _ not  _ understand,” he fired off a couple shots that she narrowly dodged, “and you have  _ no right  _ to interfere! You know  _ nothing!” _

“ _ I know enough,”  _ Gwen said sternly and shifted to float protectively over the rustbucket, even at this high a speed.  _ Especially  _ at this high a speed.

“Oh,  _ please,” _ Eon mocked, “you’re  _ ten. _ You haven’t even had the omnitrix for a  _ year. _ You think you can make decisions like this? People will live or die based on what happens right now. In fact, they’re already dying. Paradox is a lying, cheating  _ bastard,  _ and-” there was a cheery beep from his weapon- “...you can join me or die.”

Gwen rolled her eye in a show of fake confidence, “ _ well that’s a no-brainer,” _ she grated with ghostfreak’s voice before quickly going invisible when Eon’s gun started making a scary whirring sound. 

“Very well,” Eon hummed before taking aim at the rustbucket again. 

Gwen shot forward, throwing caution to the wind as she decked Eon in the face; he stumbled backward, but not near far enough- the rustbucket was still targeted. She swung around him and attacked his back, trying to find a weak spot in his armor; ghostfreak was convenient and all right now, but she just didn’t hit very hard.

Eon whipped around with a far smaller gun in his hand, but when he landed a point-blank shot in her shoulder, it burned like hell and she fell to the back of his hoverboard, hissing like a monster despite herself.

“You don’t know  _ anything,  _ stupid girl,” Eon aimed right at her head, “I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes- ha, I’ve killed both you  _ and  _ your cousin countless times! Hell, I’ve even-”

“ _ Hey bucket head!” _

Eon whipped around at the sound of Ben’s voice and Gwen peered passed his leg to see Ben holding Ditto- no, reeling him back and then  _ throwing him  _ at Eon.

“You talk too much!” Ditto finished, before suddenly splitting into five exact copies of himself in a flash of green light and tackling Eon to the floor.

Gwen phased through the mess of limbs, suddenly understanding why Ditto had given himself that name. She looked to Ben who was standing proudly, hands on his hips and chest puffed out. She was suddenly stricken by how similar he looked to all those classic superheroes Ben would drool over. He seemed bigger than normal. Braver, somehow.

Instead of any of that, she just shook her head and said, “ _ thanks for the save, doofus.” _

“Anytime, freak,” Ben replied effortlessly.

Ben may not have the omnitrix, but she could see him with it. Yeah… he would be powerful- really powerful. Maybe kinda dumb, but he could make up for that with his stubborn nature. His strong will. Stuff like that. ...He’d be a real force to be reckoned with.

...Well, too bad. You snooze, you lose. Gwen may not be a boy, she may not be brave, but she was lots of other things, too. She was smart, she was intuitive, she was selfless. 

And she had a job to do.

Gwen turned back to the fight, or more accurately, the hoverboard. The way she saw it, they could’ve had the entire day to themselves if Eon hadn’t caught up with this. If the key to this war was playing keep away, then it’d be a lot easier if the bad guy didn’t get handicaps. 

She went under the hoverboard and took a nice, big chunk out of some important looking circuitry. It sparked wildly for a moment before the whole thing sputtered and began to careen off course. 

“ _ Ditto, grab on,” _ she commanded. Immediately, Gwen had five squirming and bruised Dittos leaping into her arms all at once; she almost hit the pavement along with Eon, but thankfully Grandpa slowed down enough for her to get everybody safely back on the roof of the RV. 

“That was  _ awesome, _ ” Ben announced after a minute of watching Eon eat their  _ dust. _

A Ditto turned to the other Dittos with a wide grin, “hey, guys,” four heads turned in near perfect sync, “we just beat Eon for the fourth time!” All the Dittos erupted in a cheer, high fiving each other before getting Ben and Gwen in on it.

“C’mon, c’mon! Up high! Not that high-”

“You  _ rocked,  _ Gwen!”

“That was the best!” 

“Ben, that throw was  _ sick!” _

By the time they were all back inside the rustbucket, Gwen had transformed back and was laughing happily along with Ben and all the Dittos. The last Ditto in had almost fallen, but Grandpa had already set the RV back on autopilot, so he caught him just in time and got a tiny hug for his trouble.

“Great teamwork out there, kids,” Grandpa Max praised them, “way to look out for each other.” 

The Dittos reformed back into two- the one in Grandpa’s arms and the one on the floor. It was the one on his own two feet that spoke, “yeah, for sure. You guys were amazing. I remember me and my Gwen tended to fight a  _ lot. _ It messed us up when it counted. You two, though? Not bad.”

Gwen huffed a laugh, “We’ll see how long  _ that  _ lasts.

“Don’t go hoping for anything,” Ben shrugged.

She was sure they were both secretly pleased, though.

Grandpa turned his attention to Ditto, “you know, you were included in that compliment, too.”

“Huh? For real?”

Grandpa shook his head fondly and reached a hand out for the other Ditto, who awkwardly accepted being lifted into Grandpa’s arms as well. “I’m proud of you,” he said genuinely. “All of you.” 

“Woah, sappy…” Ben muttered awkwardly, a little color on his cheeks.

For once, Gwen agreed with her cousin, but Ditto, on the other hand, seemed taken aback. 

“That never happens,” said one, only for the other to continue with, “it’s always like ‘Ben! Stop breaking everything!’ Or ‘Ben! You need to be more responsible!’” The first Ditto picked up again, “I think it’s a dimensional thing. Or maybe my Grandpa is just done with my crap.”

“Well,” Grandpa Max started, a little awkwardly, “if you ever need a break, you’re always welcome here. Though I’m not sure how you’d  _ get  _ here…”

“...I’ll ask Paradox later,” Ditto said, leaning slightly more into Grandpa.

\---

They spent the next half day spending time together and learning about the differences in each other’s dimensions. They were all exhausted, but no one wanted to sleep with the looming threat of Ditto having to leave soon- or Eon attacking again. 

Gwen was back to fighting with her cousin, but there was nothing new about that. The new thing is that now they had Ditto to squabble with, too, but mostly just in the fun way instead of the I’m-two-seconds-from-breaking-your-nose way.

Finally, when they were parked at rest area and eating, ‘Paradox’ finally showed up. In a bright flash of light in the middle of the RV, actually. Ben promptly spewed his food all over the table and Grandpa choked on his water; Gwen managed to stifle her reaction to a flinch. Ditto just looked casually up and grinned.

“Paradox! How was the time war, man?”

“It went rather splendid, thanks to you, Ben.” 

Gwen looked him up and down, wondering why he was dressed like that; it wasn’t really what she’d been imagining ever since she heard ‘time traveler.’ 

Grandpa Max stood and approached for a handshake, “nice to finally meet you, Professor Paradox.” 

“Likewise,” he said, “though I’ve met you many-a-time, it’s always a pleasure.”

“Paradox,” Ditto cut in, “what dimension is this?”

“I believe it is the fourth. Why do you ask?”

“Well. I wanna come back here someday, obviously.”

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, this devolved into self indulgent trash by the end. i'm aware


End file.
